Kessler challenges the idea that the worlds of media and journalism have ever conformed to the 'free marketplace' image they were supposed to. There has always been restrictive entry. Groups therefore come together to exclude others from their marketplace. The result is that we seldom find free and open exchange of ideas in well-established institutions of mass communication. This present volume investigates a handful of the many fringe groups -- political, social, and cultural -- who, denied access to the mainstream marketplace, started marketplaces of their own. Journalistic efforts in six groups are explored: Black Americans; utopians and communitarians; feminists; non-English speaking immigrants; populists, anarchists, socialists, communists; and pacifists, non-interventionists, and resisters from World Wars I and II. The result is an impressive study which shows that such fringe groups are traditional, spanning one and a half centuries and a diversity of social origins.

Kessler challenges the idea that the worlds of media and journalism have ever conformed to the 'free marketplace' image they were supposed to. There has always been restrictive entry. Groups therefore come together to exclude others from their marketplace. The result is that we seldom find free and open exchange of ideas in well-established institutions of mass communication. This present volume investigates a handful of the many fringe groups -- political, social, and cultural -- who, denied access to the mainstream marketplace, started marketplaces of their own. Journalistic efforts in six groups are explored: Black Americans; utopians and communitarians; feminists; non-English speaking immigrants; populists, anarchists, socialists, communists; and pacifists, non-interventionists, and resisters from World Wars I and II. The result is an impressive study which shows that such fringe groups are traditional, spanning one and a half centuries and a diversity of social origins.